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No better way to start the year off then a trip to the Hope for Hope Little Drop’s Children’s Home. It was Mr. Selveraj, Mr. Mwendwa, and I driving up together, the private vehicle makes the trip very easy. As we passed Lake Naivasha, the scattered Zebra’s and Thomson Gazelles, and a few baboons, I am always reminded how Nyahururu and the Central Highlands of Kenya has become my favorite place in the country.

We picked up Simon and the consulting engineer Charles in Nyahururu town and drove together to the land. It was exciting driving into the land to see the Dormitory and Staff Quarters partially built. We were all able to get a great sense of what this Home will look like once it is in full swing.

The Dormitory and the Staff Quarters look just as I would expect them to look mid construction. The designs of the structures are as discussed, and it was a great thing not to see any major structural surprises! The foundation is down, the flooring is down, and the walls are up minus another meter of stone which is being added now. The next step is to do the internal walls, set the roof trusses, and get the roofing up.

We needed to make a few minor adjustments and we have run into one major problem. The minor adjustments are to enlarge the staff quarter bathrooms slightly which is difficult because the staff quarter rooms with the bathrooms are slightly smaller than we had planned for. We also need to add a door to connect one half of the dormitory to the other half.

The major problem we are facing is the water-well. It is now at 46 ft. deep and only drawing about 6 ft. of water, which is insufficient, especially given the fact that it is currently the rainy-season in Nyahururu and we will have far less water when the dry-season approaches. The problem we have here is that there is a large rock presumably blocking access to the main water table. We have consulted with a local water-surveyor who assured us this was the location where the water table is at its highest. We are no longer hiring someone to manually break the rock as it is becoming a waste of resources. Our two options are to get hold of a hydraulic drill which we can rent and bring on to break the rock or to close the well and to connect to the municipal water company, forcing us to rely only on the community water source which has its own set of problems. Stay tuned to find out! Currently we are buying a few thousands of liters of water weekly from a nearby dam and transporting it to the land to assist with the construction work.

Thanks to the holiday donations through Hope for Hope we have been able to purchase 40% of the galvanized steel roofing and with continued support we will be able to purchase the remaining amount in time for the scheduled roofing portion of our construction work!

This year has been a big year for Hope for Hope and 2013 will be even bigger! Thank you all for your unconditional support, we are all a team in building this Children’s Home, Hope for Hope is just the vessel!